Li Ming wasn’t idle, staring at her bare feet. Instead, he stood up and pulled two photos from his pocket, placing them on the table.
These were precisely the reason for Wang Keyan’s return—photos of her mother in her youth!
Having just put on her socks, Wang Keyan naturally noticed Li Ming’s actions. When she saw him take out her mother’s photos, her face lit up with joy. She immediately snatched the pictures and hugged them tightly to her chest.
“So it was you who took them! This is wonderful—this is the only photo I have of my mother.” The relief of recovering what was lost made Wang Keyan cherish the photos even more.
“Yeah, I came by earlier but couldn’t find you. I planned to return them to your mother, so I kept them safe.” Li Ming suddenly recalled Wang Keyan’s frustrated stomp in the room earlier—she must have been upset about the missing photos.
Remembering the scene, he couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle.
“Um… Warden, I’m sorry for misunderstanding you. Now I know—you’re a good person! Thank you for coming to find me!” Wang Keyan said gratefully.
If not for Li Ming, leaving now might have meant never seeing her mother again.
“No need to thank me. It’s my duty. My name’s Li Ming. I’m probably a bit older than you, so just call me by my name.” Li Ming thought to himself that no gratitude was necessary—Wang Xin, her mother, had already paid him enough.
“Ah! Okay, Brother Li! Then… can you take me to see my mother? All these years, I’ve missed her so much, but I only ever see her in my dreams. People always say I’m a motherless child, but I’d rather they call me a drug dealer’s daughter—because I do have a mother!!” Wang Keyan’s emotions overwhelmed her again, tears streaming down her face.
Seeing her cry, Li Ming quickly comforted her. He nodded firmly and said, “Of course! Our prison allows visitation. I’d never stop you from seeing your mother.”
“That’s amazing! Thank you! Thank you so much, Brother Li! Waaah…” Hearing the answer she longed for, Wang Keyan burst into tears, unable to hold back. Years of pent-up sorrow seemed to pour out at once—no one knew how much she had suffered all this time.
Li Ming wanted to console her, but mindful of propriety between men and women, he could only watch silently from the side.
Wang Keyan cried for what felt like ages, pouring out her hardships between sobs. At some point, she moved closer to Li Ming, gripping his hand tightly, thanking him over and over. The thought of seeing her mother again filled her with such happiness that, exhausted from crying, she eventually fell asleep still holding his hand.
Seeing her finally calm and asleep, Li Ming didn’t have the heart to disturb her. He stayed still, letting her cling to him.
Carefully turning his head, he studied Wang Keyan’s face—streaked with tears, yet still strikingly beautiful, even more so than her mother. Her slightly parted lips, rosy and delicate, seemed to hold an inexplicable pull, drawing his gaze.
This is her daughter. Her daughter. Her… Li Ming didn’t dare move. He closed his eyes and leaned back on the sofa, eventually drifting off as well.
The night passed swiftly.
Morning arrived. On the sofa—
A man and woman lay tightly entwined, not just holding hands, but with the man’s arm wrapped protectively around her, keeping her from slipping off.
In such a situation, who woke first became the critical question.
True to expectations—
While Li Ming was still lost in dreams, Wang Keyan stirred awake first. For some reason, she had slept exceptionally well. About to stretch lazily, the moment her eyes opened, she froze in place, not daring to move a muscle.
Her eyes widened in shock as she desperately replayed last night’s events. She remembered crying herself to sleep while holding Li Ming’s hand, but…
But things couldn’t have escalated this fast, right? How had she ended up in his arms?!
Panic set in. What should she do? How could she extricate herself before Li Ming woke up?
Help needed! Urgent!
But their position was far too intimate. Swallowing her embarrassment, Wang Keyan decided to first carefully slide her hand free.
Seeing Li Ming still asleep, she grew bolder. Propping herself up with one arm, she tried to lift her body off him—
The real challenge was her other hand, currently trapped beneath Li Ming.
Her face burned, but she didn’t dare move recklessly. If she yanked her hand out, he might wake up, and that would be mortifying!
And his arm was still draped over her. If she stood abruptly, it would surely fall—what then?!
As Wang Keyan racked her brain for solutions, she failed to notice Li Ming’s own eyes snapping open, staring at her in stunned silence.
He, too, froze, not daring to move.
Blood rushed to his head, his body growing uncomfortably warm.
Meanwhile, Wang Keyan, still without a plan, felt her supporting arm ache from the strain. She wouldn’t last much longer. Deciding to rip off the bandage, she prepared to yank her hand free and bolt upright—better a quick pain than prolonged agony!
But just then, she noticed Li Ming’s heartbeat—
Thump-thump-thump!!
…
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
and couldn't return to the real world. Finally, I gave up and decided to go with the flow, only to discover that writing a diary could make me stronger. Since no one could read it, Su Luo wrote freely, daring to pen anything and everything. Female Lead #1: "Not bad. This diary helped me steal all the protagonist's opportunities. I just want to get stronger." Female Lead #2: "I don’t care about reaching the peak of the cultivation world. Right now, I just want to enjoy the chaos." Female Lead #3: "What? Everyone around me is a spy? I’m the Joker Demon Lord?" ... It’s so strange. Why is the plot completely off track, yet the ending remains the same? Are you all just messing with me?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
